Corruption
:Feel my corrupting influence, pathetic mortal... Corruption is a Shadow-based Warlock spell in the Affliction school that damages over time. This spell receives 93.6% of your spell power bonus from gear and buffs. Rank Table Notes This spell is nothing more than a typical damage over time effect with nothing too exciting going for it outside of its pure damage, which can be majorly buffed with talents (see below) and gear. The spell lasts from 12 to 18 seconds, depending on which rank of the spell is being used (see above). As with most DoTs, once cast it inflicts damage upon its victim roughly every three seconds, and continues until either the effect wears off, or the spell's victim has met its end. This spell cannot generate critical hits like certain other damage over time spells sometimes do. One other interesting bit of information about this spell is that it has a non-standard spell power coefficient, somewhere very close to 93.6% instead of the 120% predicted by the 18 second duration of the effect. This can be overcome (and/or surpassed) with the Empowered Corruption talent, the effects of which are explained in detail in the next section. Talent improvement Improved Corruption provides Corruption with a potentially significant bonus to damage - up to 20% at Rank 5. Note: Prior to Patch 3.0.2, this talent reduced the cast time of Corruption. The spell is now instant cast by default, even with no talent points invested. The Nightfall talent depends on Corruption. Shadow Mastery will increase damage dealt by Corruption by 10% at max rank, Contagion by 5%, and Demonic Knowledge will increase damage depending on the pet you currently have out. Empowered Corruption increases the bonus damage coefficient from your spell damage bonus by 12% per point, up to 93.6% base + 36.0% bonus = 129.6% total when the talent maxes out at Rank 3. Corruption is an Affliction spell, and thus gains the benefits of Suppression, Improved Drain Soul, and Grim Reach talents. Tips and tactics *Corruption is considered a bread and butter 'staple' ability of Warlocks. It is very mana efficent; it provides 2.43 dmg per mana in its level 65 incarnation, or up to 2.92 dmg per mana with the maximum damage bonus from Improved Corruption factored in.) *Corruption is usually preferable to Curse of Agony in short fights. This is because Corruption's damage is spread evenly over its duration, and its duration is only 75% that of Curse of Agony (18 sec. vs. 24 sec.'s). While CoA is more mana efficent (2.93 dmg per mana at max level, potentially a negligible difference should the Warlock in question have Improved Corruption maxed out), that efficency is lost if the target dies before CoA completes its cycle (especially since CoA deals 50% of its damage in the last one-third of its cycle). *Corruption can be cast with your target behind you, and since it is instant cast it can also be cast while running. As such, this ability is excellent for kiting enemies. Since walking backward is much slower than running forward or strafe-running, it is always best to do one of the latter two things while attempting to kite something. Past changes Patch 3.0.2 (10/14/08): This ability was modified in 3.0.2 such that it is instant cast by default. Previously, one would have had to train the Improved Corruption talent to Rank 5 to achieve this effect. The bonuses given by Improved Corruption have been revamped in accordance with this change. Category:Warlock abilities Category:Shadow spells Category:Magic debuffs